The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 13: Republican China 1912-1949, Part 2
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
RECONSTITUTION AND LEADERSHIP I7I
south-east of Changsha between Kiangsi and Hunan, for instance, took
five months to re-establish its communication with the Hunan provincial
committee. A letter from the centre to Mao, then the secretary of the Front
Committee, sent on 4 June 1928, reached him six months later. Ho Lung
in west Hunan and Hupei knew the resolutions of the Sixth Congress only
in the spring of 1929! Fourth, within the central leadership factionalism,
especially Ch'en Tu-hsiu's 'rightist' influence, persisted. As the situation
worsened after the repeated failures in the second half of 1927, it appeared
to dim the hopes for consolidating the party organization.
7
The Sixth CCP Congress held outside Moscow in June and July 1928
charged the new leadership (principally Li Li-san from Hunan, who had
been in France and Russia) with rehabilitating the party along the
following lines. The party had to be proletarianized by bringing more
workers into its organization and leadership. This should not be done at
the expense of ideological and organizational unity, which would happen
if localism and factionalism were allowed to continue. To curb localism
and factionalism it would be necessary to intensify the education and
training of members of the party and at the same time to practise true
democratic centralism without, however, endangering the safety of the
party and its members. In the widely scattered rural base areas all efforts
should be made to arouse the broad masses in the land revolution and
soviet movement led by the party. The response of the masses was to be
a major criterion of correctness of policy and style; putschism and
commandism, which were likely to lose mass support, were deemed
erroneous. In the base
areas,
the Communists should act only as ideological
leaders, not as administrators of the Soviets themselves, so as to give the
masses the power to supervise their own governments, although not to
supervise the party
itself.
8
Following these resolutions, Li Li-san took immediate steps to
strengthen the central leadership. Although the Sixth Congress showed
a distrust of the intellectuals and Li himself noticed a barrier between the
workers and intellectuals in the party, he does not seem to have developed
an anti-intellectual stand. One can hardly describe Li Wei-han, Teng
Chung-hsia, and the cultural workers in Honan, all staunch supporters
of
Li,
as anything but intellectuals.
9
Initially the main threat to the security
7
ECO to CCP, 8 February 1929; Mao's report, 25 November 1928, Mao
Tse-tung cbi
(Collected
writings of Mao Tse-tung), ed. Takcuchi Minoni, hereafter MTTC, 2.25, 28;
Hsing-buo liao-juan
(A single spark can start a prairie fire), hereafter
HHL.Y,
1, pt. 2, 603-14. After vol. 1 citations
are by volume and page.
8
Resolutions of the Sixth Congress in
Himg-se
wen-bsien,
169-91.
« Wang Ming, Postscript to' Iiang-t'iao lu-hsien' (The two lines), in his
Hsuan-cbi
(Selected works),
j.140-1.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
172 THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT I927-I937
of Li's leadership came from the labour union leaders and it would have
been unwise for him to alienate his intellectual colleagues.
10
In the first few months of Li Li-san's leadership, when the small rural
Soviets were still struggling for their existence, the major problems of
party unity and consolidation did not lie in the rural bases. It was the
remnants of party-led labour unions and their leaders whom Li condemned
for excessive democratization, egalitarianism, bureaucratism and un-
principled factionalism.
11
His endeavour to curb intra-party democracy
in order to safeguard the party under the ' white terror' may have ended
in too much centralization of power. The complaint was that he, like Ch'en
Tu-hsiu, became a patriarch.
12
Essentially a man of action rather than
of intellectual power, Li relied chiefly on the reinforcement of discipline
to achieve unity. Now that the CCP's status as a branch of the CI had
been reaffirmed at the Sixth Congress, Li had the backing of the CI's
authority to help him pursue this line of action. Often he resorted to
dismissal to eliminate the opposition. Occasionally he even dissolved an
entire provincial committee for the same purpose.
13
Not until September
1930,
after the collapse of the Li Li-san line, did he try to lay down some
rules on the rampant intra-party struggles.
14
Even then the emphasis was
evidently on discipline in a crude and authoritarian manner. Li's attempt
to unify the party included the use of party organs. The
Bolshevik
(Pu-erb-sai-o'ei-k'e),
created by Ch'ii Ch'iu-pai in October 1927, was
continued and Li launched the weekly Red
Flag {Hung-ch'i)
in November
1928,
which was published twice weekly from October 1929 to July 1930.
And finally he formed the General Action Committee, combining the
heads of the party, youth corps, and labour unions into one body.
15
The much discussed differences between Li and Mao related more to
their assessment of the revolutionary situation and their corresponding
strategies than to party organization. The widely shared anxiety over the
increase in peasant membership, hence the possible permeation of peasant
mentality in the party, appeared to Mao to be an unwarranted fear.
Operating in remote rural areas, Mao and other soviet leaders could
10
Richard C Thornton, The Comintern and the Chinese Communists, 192S-19J1, 34.
" Conrad Brandt et al. A
documentary
history of
Chinese
communism,
172-3.
12
Ilpyong J. Kim,
The
politics of
Chinese
Communism: Kiangsi
under
Soviet rule, 183—4.
13
'
Resolutions of the second plenum' (June 1929), in Kuo Hua-lun (Warren Kuo), Cbung-kungsbib-lun
(An analytical history of the CCP); hereafter Warren Kuo, History, 2.43-4. This trend culminated
in the dismissals of Ch'en Tu-hsiu, Peng Shu-chih and many others in November 1929. See Wang
Fan-hsi, Chinese revolutionary: memoirs 1919-1949, translated and with an introduction by Gregor
Benton.
14
Hsiao Tso-liang, Power relations within the Chinese communist
movement,
19JO-19J4,
5
5-6.
15
All things considered, the tribute paid to Li's organizational achievement by the ECCI expressed
a general optimism rather than a description of reality. The ECCI resolution, often dated 23
July 1930 (see Hung-se wen-bsien, 354), was drafted in April-May and adopted in June.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
RECONSTITUTION AND LEADERSHIP 173
depend only to a limited degree on developing small-scale industries in
order to increase the proletarian component of the soviet party. Mao in
particular had to resort to political education for the proletarianization
of the peasants, who were the only masses under the party's influence and
the only important source of party recruitment. The anxiety remained
unrelieved - all that Li could do was to develop the party's work among
the workers. In the context of 1928-30, Li's effort in that respect did not
get very far.
Unity of a party so widely scattered and so badly mauled as the CCP
under Li was more a matter of ideology than of organization. Yet he was
anything but a mighty ideologue. With Moscow divided first between
Stalin and Trotsky and then between Stalin and Bukharin, Li had either
to evolve his own line or to vacillate as the CI did. Whatever direction
he followed, he had to persuade his followers. When persuasion failed,
the unconvinced left for Moscow or left the party altogether. But Hsiang
Chung-fa, Li Wei-han, Ho Ch'ang, Teng Chung-hsia, and several others
supported him to form a caucus powerful enough to control the centre
effectively.
16
In spite of Wang Ming's acrimony against Li's organization line,
17
Li
was removed by the CI not on that ground, but because of his strategic
blunders to be noted below. After a short interval of confusion, the centre
passed into the hands of the '
28
Bolsheviks', of whom Wang Ming was
the leader, through the authority of the CI. A situation thus arose in the
centre where the CI's authority was pitched against the ' real work' group
of union leaders who, persistently opposed to Li Li-san, found their power
base much eroded by Chiang Kai-shek's persecution.
18
In the countryside
it was pitched against the soviet leaders whose power in terms of territory
and men had grown enormously since the Sixth Congress.
Of all the crucial intra-party struggles, the issues that triggered the
dispute between the 28 Bolsheviks and the 'real work' group led by Ho
Meng-hsiung and Lo Chang-lung are perhaps most obscure; so obscure
that they defy intelligent speculation. By the time the dispute broke out,
the old contention between Ho and Li Li-san had been settled. The only
link between the two disputes seems to have been the ways by which the
party should be reconstructed and who should be the people to do it. The
single intelligible point to emerge from examining the existing docu-
16
Wang Ming, 'The two lines', in his
Hsuan-cbi,
3.70, 100, 108,
140-1,
and 143-4; Watten Kuo,
History, 2.334- I give these names to correct an impression that Li had almost no supporters
at all in 1929-30.
" Wang Ming,
ibid.
3.68-71.
18
HHL.Y 1, pt. 1, 16; Pei-p'ing she-hui tiao-ch'a so (Peiping Social Survey Institute), Ti-trb-l^u
Cbimg-kta lao-tmg nien-cbieti
(Second yearbook of Chinese labour), preface, 2.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
174 THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT I927-I937
ments, mostly biased against the ' real work' group, was the emergency
conference proposed
by
Ho, Lo,
and
their supporters with
a
wider
representation than the fourth plenum of the Central Committee proposed
by
the 28
Bolsheviks
and
their mentor, Pavel
Mif.
The emergency
conference proposal envisaged a reconstruction of the party from below,
whereas the fourth plenum of
the
Sixth Central Executive Committee
-
as
actually convened in January 1931
—
consisted of
a
narrow representation
which preferred
to
do so from above. As far as the 'real work' group
could see, the latter course would have most dire consequences for the
party as well as for the revolutionary movement as
a
whole.
19
Personal
factors,
for
example rivalry for leadership positions and distrust
of
the
inexperienced and young 'Bolsheviks', certainly entered into the dispute;
nonetheless they may not have been the deciding factors. When the issues
were joined, it turned out that both Ho and Lo had grossly overestimated
the strength and unity of the labour union opposition
-
a miscalculation
that ended in their total defeat at the fourth plenum in January 1931. Ho
and 22 others, including five young leftist writers, were evidently betrayed
to the police and were then shot on 7 February 1931.
Having seized the central leadership, the 28 Bolsheviks might have
attempted
to
'bolshevize' the party organization
-
on the one hand by
insisting on absolute fidelity to the political line of the CI; on the other
by practising 'democratic centralism'.
20
As they were sharp debaters,
21
it
is
reasonable
to
assume that they would have preferred committee
discussions rather than patriarchal commandism or
a
system of penalties
they seem to have disliked. In fact, however, when the cloak-and-dagger
struggles between the secret service men
of
the KMT and CCP were
exacerbated
in
1931 immediately after the fourth plenum, and the work
of the party
in
the ' white area' suffered disastrous reverses,
it
is highly
doubtful that committee meetings and democratic centralism could have
been attained.
22
10
'Centre's resolution concerning the question of Comrade Ho Meng-hsiung' (16 December 1950)
in Tang
ti
kai-tsao
(Reconstruction
of
the party), no. 1 (25 January 1931). See Hsiao Tso-liang,
Power
relations,
95. Also 'Resolution concerning the removal of Lo Chang-lung as
a
member of
the central committee and the party' (20 January 1931) in
Tang H
kai-tsao,
3 (15 February 1931).
Full text reproduced in Warren Kuo,
History,
2.218-21. See also Hsiao Tso-liang,
Power
relations,
•35-
20
Wang Ming,' Chung-kuo hsien-chuang yu Chung-kung jen-wu' (The present situation of China
and the tasks
of
the CCP), speeches
at
the 13th plenum
of
the ECCI, Moscow, 1934, 78. On
centralism, see the end of his famous pamphlet, "The two lines', in
Hsuan-cbi,
3.111.
21
In
1939
I
had
a
chance to listen to Wang Ming's public speech given in the tennis court of the
YMCA, Chengtu, when Wang Yu-chang and Lin Tsu-han were on their way back to Yenan after
a session of the People's Political Council.
I
have not heard any Chinese speaker, before or since,
more eloquent than Wang.
22
Warren Kuo, History, 2.250-9.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
RECONSTITUTION AND LEADERSHIP 175
The 28 Bolsheviks, however, achieved a greater measure of centralized
control over the fifteen or so rural Soviets than had Li Li-san. Soon after
the fourth plenum,
the
'front committees' which
had
governed
the
Soviets, were replaced by a central bureau of
the
soviet areas directly under
the Politburo, with six soviet areas under its jurisdiction.
At
least four
of these six Soviets each had a branch bureau
-
the central soviet in eastern
Kiangsi on the border of Fukien (to which Mao and Chu Teh had removed
from Ching-kang-shan
at the end of
1928),
the
O-Yii-Wan (Hupei-
Honan-Anhwei) soviet, Hsiang-o-hsi (West Hupei
and
Hunan),
and
Hsiang-kan (Hunan-Kiangsi).
23
The other two may have been directed
by
a
special committee.
24
The new institution may have weakened
the
growing power
of
Mao Tse-tung
in
the central soviet;
it
was certainly
possible for the 28 Bolsheviks
to
use
it to
eradicate Li Li-san's residual
influence in the O-Yii-Wan soviet when Ch'en Chang-hao, Shen Tse-min,
and Chang Kuo-t'ao superseded Hsu Chi-shen and Tseng Chung-sheng,
while in the Hsiang-o-hsi soviet Hsia Hsi replaced Teng Chung-hsia.
25
As the 'white area' activities became almost unfeasible, the party centre
took steps
to
remove itself
to the
central soviet, accompanied
by a
migration
of
party members. The transfer
of
the centre was completed
early in 1933, leaving only
a
skeletal liaison staff in Shanghai, who were
soon arrested by the KMT police. The transfer not only exacerbated the
struggle over issues and
for
power, but introduced many urban party
members
to
day-to-day administration
in
the open countryside that was
vastly different from clandestine work
in
cities. Their old styles
of
life,
work and writing had to undergo appropriate modifications as they were
now
in
close touch with
a
massive peasantry. Though facing similar
difficulties, they differed from the old imperial officials, who under the
principle of avoidance had to come in as outsiders, because they did not
want
to
cultivate bureaucratism purposely. Yet they also differed from
the old cadre
in
the soviet areas
in
the sense that the newcomers had
neither participated in the creation of the base areas nor acquired the styles
of peasant life and some understanding of local dialects, including Hakka.
And they did not eliminate their disdain
of
the peasants,
or
prevent the
growth of bureaucratism once they had gripped the helm of governmental
power.
26
23
Hsiao Tso-liang, Power relations, 151; Sbe-bui bsin-wen, 6.19-20 (27 February 1954), 264; Warren
Kuo,
History, 2.183—4.
24
Wang Chien-min, Cbung-km kung-cb" an-tang sbib-kao (A draft history
of
the CCP), hereafter Wang
Chien-min, Draft history,
2.503.
25
Himg-cb'i (Red flag), no.
29
(25 January 1952); Warren Kuo, History, 2.335
a
"d
367-8.
26
Ts'ao Po-i, Cbiang-bsi su-wei-ai
Mb
cbien-li cbi cb'ipcng-k'uei (The establishment and collape
of
the
Kiangsi soviet), hereafter Ts'ao Po-i,
Soviet,
464.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
176 THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT 1927-1937
The mass line
Guerrilla fighters everywhere from Algeria
to
Cuba have depended upon
the support of the masses for whom they fight. But the practice of winning
popular support through propaganda
and
action does
not
necessarily
imply
a
conceptualized 'mass line'.
To be
sure, both the party centre
and
the soviet leaders since
the
Sixth Congress
of the CCP
accorded high
priority
to the
mobilization
of
the masses.
In
fact
the
political resolution
of
the
Sixth Congress went
as far as to say
that
in the
soviet areas
the
party should expand itself into
a
mass organization,
27
while
Mao in his
Hunan report
of
1927 commented,
'To
talk about "arousing
the
masses
of the people
"
day
in and day out and
then
be
scared
to
death when
the
masses
do
rise.. .'
28
Mass mobilization had become
an
urgent matter when
the
CCP in its
first wave
of
migration
to the
countryside
in 1927
encountered
the
people
of
rural China.
At
that time
the
members
of
the
party
had to
define:
Who
were
the
peasants?
How
active were they
in
giving support
to
the revolution?
Or
how timid if they lost the protection
of the Red Army, thus exposing themselves to reprisal by the reactionaries?
How could they be more efficiently mobilized
—
through organization and
technique
or
through policy
and
propaganda?
The views
of
the
28
Bolsheviks also began
to
change once they came
in close touch with
the
peasant masses. They
in no
sense formed
a
monolithic bloc within
the
party now;
nor did
they
all
migrate into
the
central soviet.
But
none
of
them
had
fully accepted
the
mass line with
all
its
connotations,
as Mao
advocated. Although
the
centre's directive
of 1 September 1931 urged
the
central soviet
to do its
utmost
in
mass
mobilization
so as to
consolidate
the
base area,
20
its
tenor was clearly
on
mobilizing
the
masses through intensified class struggle.
Its
criticism
of
the vaguely phrased army slogan against '
rascals'
instead
of
specifically
against landlords, rich peasants
and
merchants,
its
insistence that rich
peasants be given only poor land, and its dissatisfaction with the neglected
anti-imperialist work, all illustrated this point.
In the
view
of
the centre,
only
by
sharpening class distinctions
and
class struggle could
the
soviet
arouse
a
broader mass
of the
oppressed.
Its
criticisms
and
suggestions
were reflected
in the
resolutions
of the
first party representatives'
conference,
the
First All-China Soviet Congress, which proclaimed
the
Chinese Soviet Republic
at
Juichin, Kiangsi, in November
1931,
with Mao
Tse-tung as president.
30
There were no indications in these early directives
27
Himg-se wen-bsien, 194.
28
Mao,
SW
1.56.
n
Warren Kuo, History, 2.312.
30
Hsiao Tso-Uang, Power relations, 165; Warren Kuo, History, 2.306.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
RECONSTITUTION AND LEADERSHIP 177
that the campaigns could be a way of mobilization, no reference to caring
for and cherishing the people, and no allowance for the people to supervise
and criticize the work
of
the government and party.
Even in the fifth plenum, held in January 1934 at the height of the line
of the 28 Bolsheviks, and before the decisive battles in 1934, the resolution
on the present situation
and the
tasks
of
the party stated: ' the victory
of the revolution depends upon the party, its Bolshevik political line and
work,
its
unity
of
thought and action,
its
discipline and ability
to
lead
the masses, and its opposition
to
any deviation from
or
distortion
of
the
line
of
the International
and the
Chinese party.'
31
Only after
the
first
serious military reverses
in
that year
did
dissensions
and
uncertainties
appear in the statements and acts
of
even the leading 28 Bolsheviks. For
example, Chang Wen-t'ien, generally regarded as one of the 28 who drew
closest
to
Mao just before the Long March, said on the one hand
we must always follow the line of mobilizing the masses, working through them
and relying on them, regardless whether
we
arrest and kill counter-revolutionary
landlords and rich peasants, organize them into forced-labour corps, or confiscate
and requisition their
food-stuff.
For the problem here is not simply to arrest and
kill
a
few people or to confiscate and requisition some belongings of the landlords
and rich peasants. The problem
is
how to promote the activism
of
the masses, raise the
degree
of
their
consciousness,
and rally and
organise
them round the soviet
regime,
when we
carry out our
clear
and
definite
class line.
32
On the other hand,
he
tightened the
'red
terror'. 'Red terror ought
to
be our reply
to
these counter-revolutionaries. We must, especially
in
the
war zones and the border areas, deal immediately, swiftly with every kind
of counter-revolutionary activity.'
33
Mao's views
on
the same
set of
problems and his solutions
to
them,
which admittedly were still
in the
process
of
development, showed
a
breadth of difference. As a founder of his base area, he had worked, fought
and lived with the masses longer than any of the 28 Bolsheviks. Although
he may not yet have conceptualized his experiences into
a
line
of
policy,
the Ku-t'ien resolutions
of
December 1929 emphasized
two
essential
points
-
the masses had the right to criticize the mistakes of the Red Army,
helping
it
rectify
its
mistakes,
and the
party's resolutions were
to be
implemented through the masses.
34
To be sure, the Red Army was then
dominated by the party commissars.
35
To criticize the army's errors was
synonymous with criticizing
the
party. Mao defined
the
sources
of
the
31
Tou-cbeng (Struggle),
47 (16
February 1930).
32
Himg-se Cbmig-biui, hereafter
Red
China,
28
June 1934.
My
italics.
33
Ibid.
25 May
1934.
» MTTC 2.82.
" Party centre's directive to the soviet areas, 1 September 1931, in Warren Kuo,
History,
2.302-4.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
178 THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT I927-I937
party's wisdom and ability to lead correctly in an unambiguous fashion:
' The upper-level organizations must clearly understand the conditions in
the lower-level organizations and the living conditions of
the
masses. This
will become the social origins of a correct leadership.'
36
This train of
thought led in 1932 to the following conclusion: 'All the methods [of
political and economic work] which are detached from the masses are
bureaucratic.'
37
To combat bureaucratism (that is, peremptoriness and pretentious
infallibility) was, and still is, the most important single component of
Mao's mass line. The required attitude was to be the willing pupils of
the masses, not just their leaders, and not to regard the masses as clumsy
and stupid country bumpkins but as people who deserved trust and must
be involved in administration and political campaigns. Only in this way
could the masses be aroused without doing damage to their voluntarism.
In Mao's fairly developed conceptualization of the mass line
{ch'un-chung
lu-hsieri)
of 1933, no one —neither the vanguard nor the class
—
was
presupposed to be perfect, hence the need of education for everyone.
Through education for everyone, both the cadre and masses, bad habits
and styles could be eliminated so that correct and reliable information
might be transmitted from the grass roots to become the basis of correct
policy decisions and so that the decisions might be carried out as intended.
In practical terms, this meant every possible care for livelihood and
social justice among the people under soviet rule, once that rule was
established by the army. The army itself undertook to propagandize and
organize the people in preparation for setting up a regime, while land and
other property were redistributed, counter-revolutionaries and reaction-
aries were punished, and relief was provided.
38
When the regime became
firm, its economic and financial measures should be aimed at increasing
production, facilitating trade, and sharing the tax burden fairly. In some
cases,
this might entail changes in the economic structure, for instance,
cooperativization and mutual aid teams.
39
It might also entail the use of
production drives and 'model workers'. Sometimes even the red soldiers
took part in farming.
40
To mobilize women, the Soviet Republic
introduced and adopted the Marriage Law of December 1931, while
women's activities branched out from the hearth to the fields and
battlefields.
41
The evacuation of
the
Red Army from Central China in 1934
*>
MTTCi.ii.
" Ibid,
j.168.
38
'The
Ku-t'ien
resolutions',
MTTC
2.123.
"
Information given
by
Wang Kuan-Ian
to
Edgar
Snow,
Random notes on
Red
China,
38; Red
China,
26 July
1934;
Ts'ao
Po-i,
Soviet,
345-50;
Edgar
Snow,
Red
star over
China,
183 and 253.
40
Red
China,
30
June
1934;
Ts'ao
Po-i,
Soviet,
152-4;
HHLY
2.100;
HCPP
13.65.
41
Mao, SW
1.142;
Ch'ien
T'ang,
Ko-ming
ti
ni-hsing (Revolutionary
women),
13-5;
HCPP
11.166,
171 and 210.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
RECONSTITUTION AND LEADERSHIP 179
enhanced the role of women in the remaining guerrilla areas. Less feared
by the KMT soldiers and militia, the female activists gathered information,
transported food and other necessities
to
the guerrillas, nursed
the
wounded, and fought.
42
In the administration of the law, the masses must be clearly differentiated
from their enemy and the laws made understandable
to
them. The
Marriage Law and Labour Laws were obviously designed to protect them,
while the laws and acts controlling the activities of counter-revolutionaries
were to safeguard the soviet regime.
43
In the application of the mass line
the regime became less concerned that justice be done than that justice
be seen
to
be done. The hearings were therefore public under mass
supervision, educating and warning the public
at
the same time.
44
However defective it may have been, the soviet judicial system impressed
none other than the leading opponent of
the
CCP, General Ch'en Ch'eng:
'Its strength lies in its judicial consideration to the exclusion of personal
feelings. Its beneficial consequence is shown in the scarcity of cases of
embezzlement and corruption.'
45
If one assumes that the mass line as defined by Mao had won the
approval of the party leaders, it follows that the other Soviets would have
accepted it together with all its organizations and apparatus. It is true that
the basic pattern
of
mass mobilization
in
the Hupei-Honan-Anhwei
(O-Yii-Wan) soviet was similar, with perhaps less attention to economic
work but more to the liberation of women than in the central soviet.
46
But the leader there, Chang Kuo-t'ao, had less confidence in the efficacy
of land redistribution as
a
means to arouse people than in the strength
of the Red Army to protect the mass work. Therefore he probably relied
more on coercion than careful persuasion; and so military reverses often
ended in the collapse of his mass work.
47
Conceptualized in this way,
Chang's mass line differed from Mao's. Judging from extremely scanty
information, the West Hupei and Hunan (Hsiang-o-hsi) soviet under the
rough and tough Ho Lung seems to have developed
a
more elaborate
network of mass organization in
1930-1.
His soviet tackled problems of
production
and
social welfare
by
launching production
and
land
reclamation drives and campaigns against superstition, opium addiction
and gambling. But Hsia Hsi, one of the 28 Bolsheviks, seems to have
42
HCPP
1.74;
7.79-108; 9.176-8;
II.IJI,
200-8; HHLY4.266-8.
43
The
soviet code
was
promulgated
on 15
October
1933. See
Ch'en Ch'eng Documents, roll.
16;
Trygve Lorveit, Chinese communism, 19)1-19)4: experience
in
civil government,
ch. 5,
section
B;
Ts'ao
Po-i, Soviet, 404-6.
44
Ts'ao
Po-i,
Soviet, 413—14.
45
Wang Chien-min, Draft history, 2.353.
46
HHLY 2.462
and
6.379-80; Wang Chien-min, Draft history, 2.192.
47
Cbiao-fei chan-sbib (History
of the war to
suppress
the
bandits), 4.685.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
l8o THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT I927—1937
reversed this approach.
48
As to the other, smaller Soviets, information is
even scarcer. What is known is no more than that the Japanese
discrimination against Chinese women in the factories in the north-east
of China drove them to the arms of the guerrillas. And on Hainan island
in the early 1930s there was a red detachment of 120 women commanded
by Feng Tseng-min
49
-
a
heroic episode later adapted as the plot of one
of the revolutionary operas.
Factionalism and
dejection
The history of the CCP has witnessed many factional fights, struggles for
power in an attempt to control the course of the revolution.
50
Right at
the beginning, the party was formed on clientelist ties mainly of the
master-disciple type, with Li Ta-chao and Ch'en Tu-hsiu as the two
revered figures. The lack of cooperation between them, though not yet
carefully documented and analysed, was obvious and may have been
attributable to doctrinal differences and personal disagreements. Both Li
and Ch'en, being firmly committed Marxists, worked under conditions
of intensifying persecution, but did not simply drop out like some of the
other early party members. From 1927 onward, the whole revolutionary
situation took a sharp turn. Outlawed, the dissidents could defect from
the party only by going through a humiliating and agonizing process of
confession to the KMT police or secret police, often entailing the betrayal
of one's erstwhile comrades with no assurance of one's own safety. Refusal
to do so could jeopardize one's life. Under such conditions, members of
the party who held opposing views tended to indulge in factional struggles
short of separatism or defection.
But to say that it was fear of reprisal that bound the party together
in spite of factionalism is to underestimate the strength of the ideology.
Whatever divergent opinions these factionalists possessed, they were still
Communists fighting for a common goal. Ruptures among them were
concerned essentially with organization and political lines; personal traits
and power-seeking were secondary factors. In addition to ideology, there
was also the ' iron discipline' of the party. It is true that a Communist
throve on class hatred and was combative in character. This was, however,
only one aspect of his personality; the other was a comradely love
48
HHLY 2.100-2;
Ho
Lung's article
in
HHLY
1, pt. 2,
617.
49
Ch'en Hsueh-chao, Man-tsou cbitb-fang-cb'u (Wanderings
in the
liberated areas),
94-5;
HHLY
2.510-22.
50
For a theoretical treatment, see Andrew J. Nathan,' A factionalism model for CCP polities', China
Quarterly, hereafter
CQ, 53
(Jan.-Mar. 1973) 59; also Harrison, Long March, 149-51.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008